TV

Week in Review: Beyond a Shadow

It’s still the middle of Summer, but with the light always comes the shadows and the dark. The biggest releases of this past week all took a turn to the dark side instead of the many lighter toned concepts we’ve seen recently. Not complaining at all because it has made for some compelling new MVs. Now, it’s time to shine a little light to those that have stepped out from the shadows. of Scandal:

The Ministry of Defense have finally completed their investigations into the actions of celebrity recruits in the aftermath of the”Happy Endings” scandal that happened a few weeks ago and involved several celebrity recruits including Se7en and Sangchu. The Ministry has decided to disband the “promotional support brigade” which currently consists of 15 members and will reassign all the members to different units by August 1st. The ministry also announced that eight of the celebrity soldiers will be disciplined accordingly. (jtbc)

Golden boy Roy Kim has been embroiled in plagiarism controversy regarding his song “Bom Bom Bom.” At first there were claims that the song resembled “Where The Wind Blows” by Kim Kwang-suk and A-ha‘s “Take On Me,” but those claims weren’t taken that seriously. Recently the song has been accused of sounding to similar to Acoustic Rain‘s “Love is Canon” and Roy Kim’s attitude towards the controversy didn’t help as netizens thought he was being too arrogant and offhand about the issue. When accepting his award for Booming Artist at Mnet’s 20’s Choice Awards he offered an apology saying “… I’ll work even harder sincerely and more modestly.” (etoday)

Sistar‘s Hyorin has been embroiled in controversy since a fan meeting where she supposedly had an expressionless face during a fan signing event. A video was uploaded of the event and got netizens in a frenzy because Hyorin didn’t have a smile and bubbly demeanor every second of every minute of every hour of every day was being rude to her fans. She has since offered an apology, said that it was all a misunderstanding and promised to never not have an expression on her face again. (SportsChosun)

of K-pop:

Beast has made a comeback after almost a year with their second full album Hard To Love, How To Love. The album contains eight songs–all of which were crafted by rapper Jun-hyung and Kim Tae-joo. They have also released the MV for the track “Shadow.”

Kim Hyun-joong pre-released “Unbreakable” featuring Jay Park as a lead in to the release of his third mini album Round 3. The song was written and composed by Steven Lee and the MV was choreographed by Lyle Beniga. Being a long time fan of Kim Hyung-joon I’m gonna have to say that the move to KeyEast has been a good one==I’ve never seen him look healthier or happier than he has recently.

We finally got to see B.A.P.’s “Hurricane” MV that they filmed in Las Vegas on the strip and downtown at the Fremont Experiencein front of the Four Queens and Binion’s hotels. Infinite predetermined their future with “Destiny,” Exo released the drama version MV of “Wolf,” JYJ‘s Junsu/Xia made an “Incredible” comeback, rookies BTS released the MV for “We Are Bulletproof Pt.2” rapper FANA made a comeback after losing 30kg with FANAttitude and the title track “Shoestring Blues.” Block B‘s Zico makes an appearance on the physical copy of FANAttitudealbum on the bonus track.

Female trio Dreambox released “Tomorrow,” the Voice Korea‘s Yu Seong-eun made her debut with “Be OK” featuring Baechigi, Miss$ did a remix of “You Were Not The…” featuring some narration by Verbal Jint, Juniel released “Emotion is Important” featuring Phantom‘s Hanhae as part 3 of the Dokkun Project, YGE trainee and Kang Seung-yoon who was a contestant on Superstar K2 and starred in High Kick: Revenge of the Short Leggedreleased his debut “It Rains”–boy really does have a unique voice–don’t know how it’ll quite fit in a boy band though, and Dream High 2‘s Kim Ji-soo (who was also a finalist on Superstar K2) released his first full length album A Beautiful Loveand the cute, yet creepy MV for its title track “5 More Minutes.”

Still in the Shadows:

Out of nowhere f(x) released a video teasing their come back and second albumPink Tape, Lee Jung-hyun creeped us out with the teaser for “V,” Top Band Koreawinners Toxic teased a “Count Down” to their come back, the girls of Tahiti are “Love Sick” for their latest come back and AOA Black have released teasers for their return with “Moya.”

in Japan:

LEDApple released their full length PV for “Gimme Kimi Love,” Kara‘s latest Japanese release is “Thank You Summer Love,” Daesung released another PV version of his song “I Love You,” and C.N. Blue released the PV for their song “Lady.”

In K-dramas:

C.N. Blue front man Jung Yong-hwa is favorably considering to star in a new time travelling drama for KBS called Future Choice. It will be a Monday/Tuesday drama and is scheduled to debut in October. (wowtv)

BoA has confirmed that she will star opposite Choi Daniel in a two episode pilot drama for KBS, Hope For Dating. The drama is set to film in August, but has no scheduled date for release. (ReviewStar)

Lee Min-ho‘s come back drama Heirs is gathering up quite a cast. Early on Park Shin-hye and Choi Jin-hyuk joined the cast and now Kim Sung-ryung, Kim Woo-bin, Kim Ji-won, f(x)‘s Krystal, ZE:A‘s Hyung-sik, Lom Joo-eun and C.N. Blue’s Kang Min-hyuk have also signed on. The writer is Kim Eun-sook whose recent hits have included City Hall, Secret Garden and A Gentleman’sDignity–so here’s to hoping that the script is as golden as the cast. Wonder if this drama will have the power to be more popular than Boys Over Flowers? (SportsDonga)

Infinite’s L will be making a special appearance in the Hong Sister‘s upcoming drama Master’s Sun. He’ll be playing leading man So Ji-sub’s younger self in the drama which will debut after the conclusion of I Hear Your Voice. (OSEN)

Making cameos this week were Kim Min-jong reprising his role as Lawyer Choi Yoon from A Gentleman’s Diginity and Eom Ki-joon as a public defender on I Hear Your Voice. Also Kim Ji-soo and Jo Moon-geun both contestants from Superstar K (season 2 and 1) appeared as Se-yi’s love sick singing hallucinations on Monstar.(TVReport 1, 2)